Sunday, January 01, 2006

What's YOUR worst/best New Years?

Steve having made his contribution to the mental health of his readers this morning, it made me remember the one time I didn't wake up the proverbial bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

A few years ago I was invited to a New Years party in Dallas. I took a bottle of whiskey as my contribution to things, and on the evening off we went(staying with friends, one of whom didn't drink, hell NO I wasn't driving). Party went very nicely until...

Most of the people there are Rennies(i.e., people who work at/live for Renaissance fairs), and were generally good people(Mouthfull, where are you now?). Great fun was had by all, the host took note of the fact that I spoke better English after some booze than I did sober, and somebody kept topping up my drink. With straight whiskey. Late in the evening, a while before midnight as I recall, I was sitting in a corner, halfway dozing; very drunk, and very aware that if I sat there a while and drank nothing more but water or tea I'd be fine. FINE, I tell you. And then a couple of people(man and woman, and later I could not remember who) started talking about the bit the woman was working on to gross out patrons(people who just come to the fair, wear regular clothes, i.e. normal people, though they wouldn't have put it that way).

I can't remember what the hell she came up with, I just remember that it was so bloody gross that after about ten minutes I arose fairly unsteadily from my nice, comfortable, warm corner and headed for the bathroom. Which luckily was empty. Where I proceeded to involuntarity purge my system of what seemed like everything except my lower intestines. Apparently noisily because when I left the host was at the door inquiring as to whether medical attention was needed.

I assured him no, just water. NOW, please. Which he did provide, and which I drank a damn lot of. By this time it was just about midnight, and I was in much better shape than I'd have expected, and the toast(beer passed around in a by God drinking horn) I did not have to bypass. Then I was (probably, this is a bit fuzzy) guided to the car and we went home.

The folks I stayed with had a big two-bedroom house, big bedrooms, but one was given over entirely to an office/workspace for jewelry work, so they had a cot in the attic for visitors. Not bad at all, actually; the heater was up there, it was warm and the cot was comfortable, it both gave me a place to stay and allowed people the chance to refer to me as the odd relative who lived in the attic. God knows how I made it up the ladder, but I did.

Came the morning, and probably because of all the water I'd had I did NOT have a hangover, but I didn't feel quite right, either. So I sat up and contemplated the universe until it occurred to me that food might be a good idea. So I dressed and went downladder, and happily it was only a short time after that my hosts came dragging out. I looked at them and suggested "Food?". They paused, hubby said that sounded like a good idea, so they dressed and off we went.

There's a chain in the Fort Worth area called Beefers, and they served breadfast until 2 p.m. on New Years, so there we went. No, it wasn't 1:30, only about 10:30. I got the BIG breakfast, as I recall a small chicken-fried steak, and hash browns, and two over easy, and a biscuit and gravy. And the Lord did smile upon me, for I took the first bite and a feeling of peace came over me, and all was right with the world. And I sat there and attacked my plate. About halfway through I looked across the table at wifey, who was leaning her head on one hand while she poked at her plate with the other; she turned barely-open eyes at me and asked, in a cracked voice, "How can you eat at a time like this?".

That was my worst awakening that had anything to do with booze, amazingly. Especially considering my mood for quite a while after my divorce. As of now, I've never woke up with a hangover. Never. A little fuzzy a couple of times, but nothing some liquid and food didn't take care of. I have aided some friends through the aftermath of one, and it's made me very happy to have avoided that particular experience.

And Steve? I had to work the day before AND New Years, so I had reason(besides not wanting to be on the road with a bunch of idiots and/or drunks) to wake up clear-eyed, as us virtuous folk do. So yell away.

(but if I'm nice, can I come to ManCamp someday? Please? I'll bring good scotch, I promise)

E-mail me

at elmtreeforge at att point net

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences. - C.S. Lewis

Y'all got on this boat for different reasons, but y'all come to the same place. So now I'm asking more of you than I have before. Maybe all. Sure as I know anything, I know this - they will try again. Maybe on another world, maybe on this very ground swept clean. A year from now, ten? They'll swing back to the belief that they can make people... better. And I do not hold to that. So no more runnin'. I aim to misbehave. - Capt. Mal

A Rifleman’s Prayer:Oh Lord, I would live my life in freedom, peace and happiness, enjoying the simple pleasures of hearth and home. I would die an old, old man in my own bed, preferably of sexual overexertion.

But if that is not to be, Lord, if monsters such as this should find their way to my little corner of the world on my watch, then help me to sweep those bastards from the ramparts, because doing that is good, and right, and just.

And if in this I should fall, let me be found atop a pile of brass, behind the wall I made of their corpses. Geek with a .45

"He's Black Council,", I said.

"Or maybe stupid," Ebenezar countered.

I thought about it. "Not sure which is scarier."

Ebenezar blinked at me, then snorted. "Stupid, Hoss. Every time. Only so many blackhearted villains in the world, and they only get uppity on occasion. Stupid's everywhere, every day." Ebenezar McCoy

“A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition” ― Rudyard Kipling

This deprecation of individual freedom was objectionable to me. I am convinced now, as I was then, that man is an end because he is a child of God. Man is not made for the state; the state is made for man. To deprive man of freedom is to relegate him to the status of a thing, rather than elevate him to the status of a person. Man must never be treated as means to the end of the state; but always as an end within himself." Dr. M.L. King Jr.